“Excuse me?”
I was newly 18, four months into my move to New York from New Delhi, and discovering the joys of living on my own. Tonight, this took the form of a fake ID and unlimited margaritas at a Mexican establishment somewhere in the 110s along Broadway. It was December, right after my first finals week, in that weird limbo before the winter holidays where weekdays are no longer filled with seminars but with meals and drinks with your classmates before everyone leaves for home. A friend of mine, with whom I shared several premed classes, invited me to one such gathering with her friends. I had almost bailed because I didn’t know anyone there, but she had rightly pointed out that I needed to decompress.
A man leaned into me from the adjacent table, almost as if to tell a joke. I thought maybe I was sitting on a jacket or a purse. “Yes?”
“Are you a man or a woman?” he asked.
